AN EXERCISE IN GROUND-WATER MODEL CALIBRATION AND PREDICTION

Abstract. For a classroom exercise, nine groups of graduate students calibrated a numerical ground-water flow model to a set of perfectly observed hydraulic head data for a hypothetical phreatic aquifer. All groups used exactly the same numerical model and identical sets of observed data. After calibration, the students predicted the hydraulic head distribution in the aquifer resulting from a modification in one boundary condition. A quantitative analysis of the results of this calibration-prediction exercise vividly demonstrates some of the difficulties in parameter identification for ground-water flow models. Group predictions differed significantly. Successful prediction was strongly correlated with successful estimation of conductivity values, and was essentially unrelated to successful estimation of aquifer bottom elevations or with the number of trial-and-error simulations required for calibration. Most importantly, success in prediction was unrelated to success in matching observed heads under premodification conditions. In this sense, good calibration did not lead to good prediction.     

资源开发、环境保护与地球物理学

人口、资源、灾害与环境是困扰当代人类的几个重大问题.人口的增长,要求有更多的资源,而资源开发、利用的合理与否,又势必对环境产生有利或有害的影响;环境的改善或恶化,反过来又必然影响到资源的增减.因此,如何处理好它们之间的关系,使资源得到合理的开发和利用,同时又保护或改善环境,形成资源开发利用与环境保护改善之间的良性循环,应当是人类共同奋斗的一个目标. 本文依据一些实际资料论述了上述问题以及地球物理学在解决这些问题中所应起的作用.